Transformative Translanguaging Espacios

This book contributes to the understanding of the transformative power of incorporating translanguaging, the dynamic language practices of bi/multilingual communities, in the schooling of US Latinx children and youth. It showcases instructional spaces in US education where Latinx children’s and youths’ translanguaging is at the center of their teaching and learning. By centering racialized Latinx bilingual students, including their knowledge systems and cultural and linguistic practices, it transforms the monolingual-white supremacy ideology of many educational spaces. In so doing, racialized bilingual Latinx subjectivities are potentially transformed, as students learn to understand processes of colonization and domination that have robbed them of opportunities to use their entire semiotic repertoire in learning. The book makes a strong theoretical contribution to the field, putting decolonial, post-structuralist understandings of language and bilingualism alongside critical race theory and critical pedagogy.

This important and inspirational volume brings hope and justice to K-12 schools. It deepens the understanding of translanguaging pedagogies towards transformative translanguaging spaces for bilingual students. The book rompe fronteras y muros sin miedo and stays true to the academic, linguistic, and political origins and purposes of the translanguaging movement in the field., Transformative Translanguaging Espacios reminds us that Latinx communities must insist on politicizing our translanguaging practices on our own terms, and reject decades of politicization experienced via reductive and harmful language policies and practices. The authors – scholars and maestrxs – inspire us to move forward with the political and radical spirit of translanguaging scholarship toward consequential learning possibilities, y sin miedo!, A counternarrative to dominant conceptualizations of bilingualism that pathologize the complex and dynamic language practices of racialized bi/multilingual communities, Transformative Translanguaging Espacios centers the perspective of language as performed by diverse Latinx bilingual students and their teachers. The editors and authors clearly and cogently articulate the affordances of translanguaging pedagogy as a transformative tool for anti-racist work in education in this accessible, engaging, and thought-provoking volume., This edited volume helps hone translanguaging as a theory of language use by documenting and delineating its transformative potential. Furthermore, it makes an important contribution to teaching practice by looking at how translanguaging pedagogies can create and sustain humanizing and just classrooms., ...this is an excellent state-of-the-art edition that synergizes the various works of passionate and dedicated scholars, teachers, and school administrators. I highly recommend this book to scholars in Bilingual Education, doctoral students, bilingual educators, and, most importantly, school administrators across the country.

Maite T. Sánchez is an Assistant Professor of Bilingual Education at Hunter College of the City University of New York, USA. Her research focuses on language education policy and practice, particularly related to Latinx and other minoritized bilingual students, translanguaging pedagogy, and the experiences of novice bilingual education teachers entering the profession. She has published in journals such as Bilingual Research Journal, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism and TESOL Quarterly.Ofelia García is Professor Emerita in the PhD programs in Urban Education and Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, USA. She has published widely in the areas of bilingualism/multilingualism and bilingual education, language education, language policy, and sociology of language. The American Educational Research Association has awarded her three Lifetime Research Achievement Awards – Distinguished Contributions to Social Contexts in Education (2019), Bilingual Education (2017), and Second Language Acquisition Leadership through Research (2019).